Climate Law Update: Climate Change & Sustainable Energy News : Thelen Reid Law Firm : Renewable Energy, Construction, Project Finance Lawyers & Attorneys

Boxer (pictured), a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said she would "anxiously await" the inauguration of a new president more disposed to the issue. President Bush had threatened to veto the legislation as Climate Law Update had noted. The vote effectively killing the bill came after supporters hauled out retired military leaders who described climate change in national security terms (see individual statements from Adm. Joe Lopez and Gen. Gordon Sullivan).

The Washington Post reported that Senate leaders pulled back the bill after the vote. 

Critics of the legislation, such as Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the committee, stressed what they described as the bill's huge costs. Inhofe issued a statement in which he referred to it as the "largest tax increase in American history." In his statement, Inhofe said:

"As I suspected, reality hit the U.S. Senate when the economic facts of this bill were exposed. When faced with the inconvenient truth of the bill’s impact on skyrocketing gas prices, very few Senators were willing to even debate this bill."

Inhofe also released another statement and a letter from 10 Democrats suggesting the legislation would have fallen well short of passage had it come to a final vote.

In a statement Friday, Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the Paris-based agency, which advises 27 nations, mostly in Europe, put the situation in stark terms:

“There should be no doubt - meeting the target of a 50 percent cut in emissions represents a formidable challenge. We would require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale. It will essentially require a new global energy revolution which would completely transform the way we produce and use energy”

The agency also released a graphic presentation and a series of fact sheets laying out its case and what it believes needs to be done. The 50 percent reduction is a figure derived from estimates put forward by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regarding reductions needed to keep the planet's average temperature from increasing more than 2.4 degrees Centigrade. The G8 organization of the world's richest nations also recently moved toward that goal. 

According to the energy agency, increasing efficiency and virtually eliminating emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief heat-trapping gas, would stabilize emissions at current levels, while cutting them by half would also require other measures, such as carbon capture and storage. Meeting that goal could require the annual construction of 32 new nuclear plants, 17,500 large wind turbines and 215 million square meters of solar panels, as well as more than 50 coal- and gas-fired power plants fitted with carbon capture technology.

Continuing current policies unchanged would produce a 130 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions and a 70 percent increase in oil demand. That latter figure would mean the equivalent of five times the current production from Saudi Arabia, Tanaka said.

(Picture: Sen. Barbara Boxer's office)  

Last November the IPCC, which won a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for its work sounding the global warming alarm, issued its fourth report assessing the climate threat (see text here). Researchers asserted that the climate is changing and that most of the increase in global temperatures since the mid-20th century was very likely due to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases. They also saw little time to act to prevent the most severe effects from occurring.

At the same time, the report also concluded that a combination of responses, including efforts to reduce or mitigate the growth in emissions, could significantly reduce the risks. Since 1997 Metz, a senior researcher at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, has co-chaired the IPCC's group looking at mitigation strategies (see mitigation report). Metz is also a visiting professor at Stanford University.

Metz said that in order to achieve the goals of avoiding the worst effects of climate change, government support for technology and “a lot of R&D” was needed. He also said that other steps, including setting a price on carbon by means such as a cap and trade program, were also critical:

“At that moment, emissions of [carbon dioxide] and other greenhouse gases get factored into business decisions. They become really part of the balance sheet. That’s a very good incentive for businesses to take proper action.” 

His remarks mirrored those of other experts who have recently advocated that more than a market-based approach will be needed to cope with global warming. There is a note of increasing urgency in light of information, such as that cited by Metz from the IPCC suggesting that more serious problems may occur at lower temperatures than earlier estimated.

The New York Times recently reported on the shifts in the debate over what to do (see story here). Among those it cited was prominent Columbia University economist Jeffrey D. Sachs. In a piece in Scientific American (see article here), Sachs argued that a variety of approaches, including new research, was needed:

“We will need large-scale public funding of research, development and demonstration projects; intellectual property policies to promote rapid dissemination to poor countries; and the promotion of public debate and acceptance of new options. We will need to back winners, at least provisionally, to get new systems moving.” 

He argued that even with a cutback in "wasteful energy spending," current technologies could not support both a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and a growing global economy.  The key, Sachs wrote, "is new low-carbon technology, not simply energy efficiency."  

A critical issue is time. Metz displayed statistical graphs showing that emissions should have peaked no later than 2015 in order to prevent global temperatures from increasing by much more than 2 degrees Celsius, a kind of benchmark denoting the point at which serious human adaptation would have to occur.

“What we do in the coming ten to 20 years is of crucial importance, [determining] how much warming and how many impacts we will have in the longer term,” he said. Metz noted other estimates showing that if carbon were to achieve a price of about $100 a ton by 2030, that could drive emissions down to 2000 levels, which he called “a fairly positive signal.”

But he also noted that as of right now, emissions are still on the increase, and there were other factors at play. For instance, he said, even some actions that pay off economically are not being pursued.

“If you invest in energy savings in buildings you earn your money back quickly. It makes economic sense to do it and still it’s not happening because of all sorts of barriers and low incentives. That’s why specific action in terms of policy needs to be taken to make things happen.”

The task ahead, Metz suggested, employing a metaphor rooted in the fossil fuel industry, is formidable.

“It’s like turning around a super-tanker,” he said.

(Photo credit: Climate Law Update)